Accenture Social Media Analysis

Accenture fond Media Analysis MKT 436 Ian Cartmill Zach Crawford Edwin Huang Tyler Whitsett insane asylum Accenture PLC is ace of the leading consulting firms in the country and has developed an extensive kind media plat pattern to expand its refer in the business world. Accenture authenticly has a network of genial media across many platforms including Facebook, chirp, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Through Facebook and chirrup, Accenture segments its markets by domain, graphic symbol of service, and vocation options by making a Facebook knave or chirp account exclusively for that market.With Accentures YouTube page, a wide variety of motion pictures ranging from video blogs to educational capacity on community growth. Finally, done LinkedIn, Accenture profiles its diametrical serve as soundly as connects with professionals who would be looking for their service. In supplement to the traditional social media sites, Accenture operates many different applications through F acebook, iTunes, Google take to the woods as well as its own online publication, Outlook. After a description, an synopsis willing be given to measure the surgery of Accentures social medias efforts.Finally, recommendations will be given on how Accenture can improve their efforts to reach a wider audience. Social Media Description Accentures Facebook and Twitter presence is passing large which is shown by the numerous pages on these sites. Currently, Accenture has everyplace 40 different pages on Facebook and 30 different Twitter handles (A1), each catering to a particular market. Ab tabu half of these pages argon targeted based on the region or country in nightspot to pass on information scarcely aimed a countrys business environment.Within each of the countrys pages, discussions and interactions occur with nodes and users through contests, interviews, philanthropic endeavors in the region done by Accenture, and information the caller-up provides on different industrie s. Usually the countrys page will display resume opportunity thinkin order to abide by acquiring immature talent for the company. If c arer opportunities are non listed on this page, an individual career page is listed to provide information on career opportunities at Accenture in that region.On Accentures main Facebook and Twitter pages, different grammatical cases of servement, operations, marketing, and early(a)wise strategies are presented so all customers can see the take aim of digest they will receive from an Accenture team. Also, articles written by Accenture are shown on the pages that concatenation from work events to in depth stories on industry trends constantly are posted weekly. Finally, the last sets of pages on Facebook and Twitter are use to provide customers with an in-depth look into the different services provided by Accenture.For ex axerophtholle, the Sustainability Services Facebook page provides links to articles and case studies on fosterability in a business in order to reduce cost and create efficiencies (http//www. sidebook. com/accenturesustainabilityservices). They in any case acquire their customers and users through surveys, games and other actions that keep users coming back to their page. In addition to Accentures Facebook and Twitter pages, YouTube and LinkedIn provide a preposterous and different way to reach out to their customers.Through their YouTube account, Accenture is able to provide different types of new information to both received and potential new customers with its 251 videos (A1). For example, a Capital Markets video blog is used to describe different topics related to capital markets and the process of managing the risks with them. In other set of videos, a video podcast shows different traits of a high performance business model that can be emulated by other companies.All content that is put up on the YouTube account is used to attract new customers to what Accenture does and provide exist ing clientele insights as to how Accentures strategies can unwrap their companies. This is a more(prenominal) casual look at Accentures customer attraction actions. For a more formal approach to gaining new customers and staying affiliated with current clients, LinkedIn is utilized. With LinkedIn, Accenture can professionally show their core competencies as well as present customer recommendations and feedback (LinkedIn). They also demonstrate their corporate ending through employee reviews and insight.To go along with Facebook and Twitter, they also bind a careers page to continue acquiring talent in every medium possible. beyond the typical social media realms in which close to companies are involved in, Accenture has also grown into new areas that describe themselves in the social media marketing. This is done through Accentures online journal, Outlook, and the development of apps to further their marketing efforts. Outlook provides a unmatched connection to existing and potential customers by giving articles that can be anything from industry specific trends or news to skill and service actions.This demonstrates the level of expertise Accenture can provide to new customers, and assist in providing excess offer upings to their current customers. Finally, after all traditional online forms of social media are tucker out Accenture also provides many of the same marketing sites in the form of roving apps for the iTunes and Google Play markets. This gives customers the ability to see all content and information on the go as most business people are. These applications include a mobile version of Outlook and other service specific applications (Google Play). Social Media AnalysisAlthough Accenture has tapped into the most popular social networks, they dont utilize them to their climb potential. Their main strength across the social networking platforms is the ability to reach current and potential customers, employees, future hires, students, and any one who might be interested in what Accenture has to offer. An example is their applications through iTunes and Google play. On iTunes they have 14 mobile apps and on Google Play they have 11 apps compared to Ernst & Youngs 6 apps on iTunes and 3 apps on Google Play (A1). Some apps are duplicates some are strictly for employees, while others are for the public.The apps range from a National postal Forum to Financial Services to Lux in Arcana. Since it is purchasable on iPhone and Android platform, they are targeting the most popular smartphone users. other metric to mete out how large their social network presence is their main Facebook page, Accenture has over 145,000 likes compared to E & Y with 15,000 likes (A1). With these many options and a well-known presence, they are able to increase their brand awareness and position themselves as knowledge experts in that field. Another strength Accenture has with their social platforms is that they are continuously adding content to them.On their Twitter feed, they tweet an average of 66 times a week along with additional links in the message compared to E & Ys 20 tweets a week (A1). On their Facebook , they post 39 times a week compared to E & Ys 2 times a week (A1). More tweets and posts, enables them the opportunity to be noticed more by the market. This is shown through how many Facebook users are talk to the highest degree them. Accenture has over 2,000 users posting about them compared to E & Ys 390 users talking about them (A1). A weakness of their social networks is the lack of integration across the different platforms.An example is their YouTube and Twitter page. In their description, it lone(prenominal) provides a link to their home page instead of including their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes store, and Google Play. (About Accenture). After an analysis of their YouTube channel, we determined that they could include more in their descriptions by including a summary of the video , tags, and follow up information. They need to make it easier for users to dive further into Accenture if necessary. Another weakness of their social networking strategy is that it does not incorporate a form of a push/pull strategy.Their current push strategy is not creating an atmosphere of a two way interaction. On their pages, they do not engage or follow up with the users to keep them coming back. Although they wait questions in their tweets, they are not going out of their way to depend for potential topics they could enlighten a user about. From comparing Accentures social media networks to Ernst and Youngs networks, they both use the same platforms but Accenture has a larger social media presence with more content. In Twitter, Accenture has over 62,000 chase with over 5500 tweets compared to E & Ys 37,000 pursual and 2,600 tweets.On LinkedIn, Accenture has over 600,000 followers with 179,000 employees on it compared to E & Ys 364,000 followers and 114,000 employee s on LinkedIn. Accenture has the most presence and content in every menage except for the amount of YouTube videos they have. Accenture has 251 compared to E & Ys 485. managerial Recommendations The heart of a successful e-commerce strategy is the ability to attract and engage a potential customer by offering easy entre to a variety of different information channels about your company.Although Accenture offers many different informational channels that explain who they are and what services they can offer to potential clients, these channels are not easily doorible. When doing a childlike search of Accenture on Google, you initially see a link to Accentures weather vanesite along with a few light upon words with vague descriptions. In order for Accenture to attract and gain new clients they need to have access points to all of their different social networks.These social media access points will go away Accenture to promote its marketing message to a larger business demogr aphic who will feel more comfortable operating in one of these social media domains. Accenture also needs to do a emend moving in at educating its customer base by explaining who Accenture is as a company and what kind of services they offer to potential clients. As it stands now customers who go on Accentures company website have to navigate through web page after web page to find a simple-minded description on which the company is and what services they offer.Accentures homepage is full of key words and links to other parts of the companys website. I would recommend that the include information on value added services that would differentiate itself for competitors. Accenture should elaborate on its many value added services that it has done in the past on projects that reduced cost, improved performance, innovative features, speed reactivity and customization. These value added services will not only attract and sustain customers it will also help Accentures bottom line by ca using customers to pay a higher premium for services rendered.Since most of the services that Accenture offers to its customers are intangible they need to do a better job at trying to make their services feel more tangible, instead of just offering detailed, long worded business plans and short, non-descriptive statements on services provided. Accenture could further demonstrate services that they provided to past customers through cost savings graphs, efficiency improvement charts, and customer testimonials. Also, to reduce customer uncertainty and foretell any questions a potential customer might have I would recommend that Accenture have a live web assistant communicate service on their home page.This service would allow the customers to speak in real time to a customer service representative. These simple tweaks to Accentures homepage will reduce some of the unknowns and risk that all customers undoubtedly face when searching for a new company to do business with. In order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of B2B marketing Accenture should adopt a CRM system like its lead competitor Ernst & Young did to manage its client customer base.Ernst & Young adopted a CRM software called Aprimo to perform the following functions targeted ask e-mails, ongoing lead management, inbound interactions via weave form submission, Webcast registration and follow-up, and project management (task assignment and follow-up) for their national and regional marketing teams (Shadick, 2012). Many of the components of the information within Ernst & Youngs Aprimo CRM system are shared with customer relationship departments within the firm.For example, opportunities are collected from events, tradeshows, sponsorships, webcast and direct communications, which are then distributed to the appropriate individuals for follow-up (Shadick, 2012). With the adoption of CRM systems like Aprimo, Accenture would have real-time access to clients interest and inquires allowi ng them to tailor their solution to new and existing clients needs. destruction In Conclusion Accenture is a very dynamic B2B company that utilizes virtually all of the media outlets available to educate and attract new customers.Accentures B2B marketing campaign is unique in the fact that it leverages its current ongoing business initiatives with its own customer base through an online Journal called Outlook. This journal boldly talks about what Accenture is doing now and in the future for its client base. This and many other fanciful marketing/informational channels that Accenture has created brings assurance and a sense of trust to customers who are uncertain with partaking in a service that really doesnt prove a tangible outcome and cost thousands, if not millions, of dollars to perform. Works Cited Shadick, David (2011).Ernst & Young Better Manages B2B Marketing with Aprimo Marketing, Sun. 17 Nov. 2012. <http//www. information-management. com/issues/20030301/6410-1. ht ml>. Services. Linkedin n. pag. LinkedIn. Web. 17 Nov 2012. <http//www. linkedin. com/company/accenture/products? trk=tabs_biz_product>. Apps by Accenture. Google play n. pag. Google play. Web. 17 Nov 2012. <https//play. google. com/store/apps/developer? id=Accenture&hl=en>. Accenture. About Accenture n. pag. YouTube. Web. 17 Nov 2012. <https//www. youtube. com/user/Accenture>. Appendix A1 Social Network inflection